WEBVTT

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One of the first things he
decided to be was the postman.

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He'd always wanted to be
a postman from those days

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at the orphans home.

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When there was no
one to write to him

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through the long lonely
days in this furnished room.

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From his high,
single, dusty window,

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how many times he
had watched his face

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pressed like a moon against
the glass or the screen?

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The Postman coming
up the sidewalk.

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Shifting the weight of the
heavy mysterious leather

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bag on his shoulder, bundled
against cold or sweating

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on hot summer days.

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Bearing always in
that miraculous

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grab bag, the prizes, the
sealed news and secret messages

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of other worlds.

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How quirk envied that burden.

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The young postman bore a
load of pleas, rejections,

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recriminations, passions,
and deep desires.

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He brought bills
and ads, and news

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of birth and death, love and
death lay lightly in his hands.

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The transformation was simple
and on the whole successful,

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yet it disturbed him deeply.

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Here, we cut for a
minute to his journal,

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and I might explain one thing.

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I don't know what's coming
up, to tell you the truth,

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but I haven't read
this in a while.

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All the dirty words
to coin a title.

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Of all the dirty words
they appear, I decided,

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since Miss Eudora Welty and my
mother both once reprimanded me

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for in the southern
phrase too much ugly

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talk that I would not prohibit
the characters from talking

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ugly.

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But I would use
variations on this

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such as bleak, black,
blah, and so forth.

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So, if we come to
some of those, I'm

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not centering the
narrator of this story,

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or the characters have
already censored it out.

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But they were just as offended
there because they said, well,

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we know what you meant.

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Here he is.

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How little I know of
the people around me?

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He wrote in his journal.

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Who would have dreamed that
young bridges is a drunk?

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All this time I
thought he was ill.

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And take Mrs. Kinase,
the widower Kinase,

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whom I have long admired
for her impeccable taste,

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fastidious manners,
and her rare, rare,

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in this section of town,
appearance, cool, smiling,

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and elegant.

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She's always seemed like
one bright flower of beauty

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in this crummy neighborhood.

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And yet, while I was
being the postman,

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she offered herself to me in
payment of 8 cents postage due.

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First, she said they had the
money up in her apartment,

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and would I mind coming
upstairs to get it with her?

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I followed her up the
stairs cheerfully.

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Once inside the door,
she turned and told me

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she didn't have a red cent to
pay me, and I can believe it.

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The apartment of the widow
Kinase is bare and empty.

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No furniture of any kind
at all, except for one

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old ripped mattress in
the middle of the floor.

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No objects of any kind, no
chairs, no rugs, no curtains,

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nothing.

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Except that all the closets are
open, bulging and overflowing

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with clothing.

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The closets glittering and
glowing like open jewel boxes

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over brimming with an abundance
of extravagant beautiful

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clothes.

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What a thing to live
like a poor rat,

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to live almost as poor as poor
old job in order to walk cool

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and smiling and elegant on the
streets in her fine clothes.

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And so, even curiosity
and disillusion,

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I must ask myself, what is
the truth about Mrs. Kinase?

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What is the truth for her?

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Is it to strip to the skin
hurriedly and lie down

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on a mattress in the
middle of the floor

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to plead with a young postman
to accept the gift of herself

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in lieu of 8 cents postage due?

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Why?

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In the vain hope, does
that sealed envelope

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may contain some answer, some
shattering marvel of news,

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some ultimate and
undeniable revelation which

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will change her face and
the face of this old world,

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or at least wipe away
the lines of her face

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and the cruel print
of crow's feet

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at the edges of her bright eyes?

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Later, the real postman
coming along his daily route

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was somewhat
astonished to discover

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that someone, or other
apparently himself,

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had already delivered the
mail in this neighborhood.

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Now, this was a test for Quirk.

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Anxiously watched from
the window of his room

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when the real postman
appeared on the scene.

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He watched him chat amiably with
some people on the sidewalk,

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and then shrugged his
shoulders and go away briskly,

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whistling a happy tune
as if what had happened

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were the most ordinary
occurrence in the world.

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Off went the postman with
a shrug and a whistle,

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and not even the
burden of suspicion.

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And so Jacob Quirk concluded
that people most of the time

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were devoid of the
itch of curiosity.

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And that most of them,
in fact, live continually

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in a senseless, irrational,
mysterious, and magical world.

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A world in which even the
most remote and isolated

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of Aborigines, clad only in
war paint and loincloths,

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would find
frighteningly primitive.

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Quirk imagined that he could
come galloping down the street,

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riding on a noble steed,
clad in a suit of armor,

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a St. George outlooking
for a dragon.

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And just so long as he
didn't run a red light,

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go up a one way street
in the wrong direction.

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Begin to tilt and joust
with taxicabs and trucks.

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He would not likely
raise a single eyebrow

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among the crowd of
those passing by.

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So wholly engrossed were they
in their own woes and concerns.

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He decided that people
see what they want to see,

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and believe what
they care to believe.

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And this, in itself,
he ascertained

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was at once the strength
and secret of his art.

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This knowledge gave him an
intoxicating, dizzying sense

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of his own freedom.